India made a positive attempt to allay any concerns and fear on nuclear energy and stressed on arriving at a consensus on understanding the effect of radiation on human health.

India made a positive attempt to allay any concerns and fear on nuclear energy and stressed on arriving at a consensus on understanding the effect of radiation on human health.

Speaking at the 58th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr R K Sinha said: “The IAEA should take the lead in this direction, along with other international bodies by organising an international symposium for scientific discussions and to arrive at a consensus on the current state of understanding on the effect of low dose radiation on human health. There is also a need to identify any residual gap areas that need further scientific research.”

Maintaining that an accelerated and conclusive scientific research, on the matter of health effects of radiation, would allay the perceived or misplaced concerns on nuclear energy in some sections of the society, Dr Sinha said: This would also lead to more wide-spread use of life saving radiation-based diagnostic modalities at affordable costs.”

Listing the various milestones that India had attained in the field of nuclear energy in 2014 he said: “As part of India’s commitment to implement the highest standards for the safety of Indian nuclear power plants, several steps have been taken in the recent past to organise peer reviews at national and international level.” Referring to the challenges on management of nuclear waste he said: “Indian policy of employing a ‘closed nuclear fuel cycle’ not only ensures better utilisation of the nuclear fuel resources, but also greatly minimises the quantity of nuclear waste.”

Lauding the sustained effort made by IAEA for cancer management he said: “As a part of continuing efforts towards development of cost effective and efficient modalities for early diagnosis and treatment of cancer, the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), an autonomous institution under DAE, in collaboration with BARC, has established techniques, using commercially available monoclonal antibodies, to deliver radioisotopes to specific sites for imaging and also for treatment of tumours.”